flypunk

Just to clear the air for all of you who don't know him, yes he did an intentional cutaway without a third parachute at 1500'. Our dropzone is pretty laid back and people are truly friendly. It is very rare (but not impossible) to find big egos. Unfortunately here it seems like the biggest one comes from someone who thinks he is bulletproof, and thinks has nothing more to learn at 112 jumps. I would almost say that everyone at the dz has tried to reach him at a friendly level, from the people with the same amount of jumps all the way up to very experience jumpers with little to no positive results, then it progressed into being more stern and eventually into just hoping that he doesn't injure someone else. Donnie, please stop for a second and consider that the skydivers are a family and the fact that you feel that everyone is against you might be a reflection on your attitude. Please consider that all these rules and all the persons that are trying to get to you are not doing it with the intent to alienate you or to stop you from having fun, but to keep you alive and keep the dropzone a safe place and a fun place for all. Blue Skies. ...

Some bastard once stole my pizza, and needless to say I was realy pissed, so now every time I bring in lunch I label it with the CFO's name. Trust me nobody has taken my lunch again.

yeah whatever the arab said... I mean... that is one way or you can just get him a wing jacket and let him use his freefly pants. That way you can kinda guestimate on his size by the jackets at home. If he is really selective on size and bagginess I would suggest to go with tarek's advice. ...

I've jumped one before in a foreign dropzone, It carried 10 jumpers + 2 crew while confortable. The door is very small and the tail low, very low. The wing being so close to the door does not allow for a front float camera exit either, otherwise you'll end up sitting on the wing. Given a choice (Even if that meant driving a longer distance to another dz) I would not jump this plane again. ...

bwahhahahahah she is pulling your leg, she is up to her old habits... say hi for me when you see her I you would. Also tell her to stop lying to you! let her stink her own room. ...

I believe he was out this weekend, I could even swear that he was sitting in the plane with us. ...

Lets see.... A week ago I had one who went along for the joyride (she had done two tandems a couple of years ago) she paid attention to everything and was all ready. So we go to the door, she gets in right position, perfect exit, great arch, during freefal very aware, gave her thumbs up and she gave them back I started screaming and so did she, did a turn to the right and she loved it she signaled for more, did a turn to the left and she went apeshit with excitement so I took her for a couple of 360s, put arms in when signaled and cheered all the way during opening. After adjusting harness and all did a bunch of spirals on her request and practiced landing with great leg position. Perfect stand up landing, and this time we both walked away like a giddy schoolgirls. I had a blast with her, kinda like when you nail that perfect routine with your vidiot.

It will all depends on the instructor and his first hand knowledge of your flying skills. A word of caution about backflying though, it is very common for people starting to backfly to track while they are backflying, it that is the case you may end up on top of the previous group. ...

I hope you meant where is my Shinner... ...

there is a setup that allows for both horizontaly and vertically real easy, (hold on) but first regardless of what you are using don't just rely on velcro, use a screw or a stroboframe to hold it on, its a well spent 90 buck instead of loosing your camera. now as far as the setup goes, mount a stoboframe, that will allow you to mount your camera horizontaly. get an aluminum l bracket and another stroboframe, mount the xtra receiver of the stroboframe vertically and the mount plate on the bottom. confused? ok one stobo snap on part goes in your helmet the other one on the vertical part of the L bracket. the stobo plates are mounted on your camera and on the horizontal part of the bracket. This allows you to mount you camera and snap it off and then mount the bracket and snap your camera into your bracket, making it real easy and fast, and if you are not using anything the only thing left in your helmet is one stoboframe base. ...

I beg to differ on that one dude, I have bars and they do get caught in the harness, put sports bandaids or duct tape over them. One hard opening is all you need to come down bleeding. ...

There are two different coaches courses, one is the standard uspa coaching course and then there is skydive u coaching course, Dave is talking bout going through the skydive u one, which teaches you more flying from what I've heard, the standard one evaluates your flying and teaches you teaching techniques. Number of jumps are only a benchmark if you dont feel ready, you proably aren't. Dont sweat it there is no need to rush it. ...

beat up to a pulp from jumping all weekend and having way too much fun. ohhh one word....lets sum it up then skydiver

We also offer the second jump if you do it the same day for only 99 as an incentive for them to keep at it and get hooked. As far as the video option goes, I am all for giving it to them and if they dont want to keep doing it then so be it. Lets face it to some people it will be a one time deal, something they had to get out, some bet they will win, a promise made while drunk and trying to impress a girl or something along that line. The ones that will return, wont be either discouraged or encouraged by video, regardless of wether they will go all the way or just do a tandem a year to have fun. When I started I had my mind set in doing it and sticking with it, not wanting to do AFF I took the option to do a sort of tandem progression, and never got video till my level 8's. Of course it was cuz I was saving all I could for the jumps. As allways I am all for choices and freedom of action. blue skies ...

PC-03 took adive, currently using PC-5. ...

I dont really see the purpose on doing a check dive, to renew the ratings, I would rather see hte # of yearly jumps brought up. !5 jumps a year is hardly current for an instructor IMO. ...

The attitude of the other Instructor/Coach was very un-professional, there are ways to approach it without throwing attitude in. This being said there are also ways to prevent it. Instructors/coaches and just humans in general will have not only different teaching methods but different responses to the same situation. There might be several right ways some of them might have adverse consequences to the learner some might not. One way to improve this for the students and for the dz (and this are my 2c, take it or leave it) is to have an established way of teaching for your dz. Develop a uniform program within all your instructors/coaches and make sure that they are all aware of it and follow it, it will not only prevent this type of scenario, but it will be less confusing to the student, when he has to re-learn something that was taught to him, and less hassle for the instructors since they wont have to "correct" and re-teach what the student learned in the previous jump. ...

The sensory overload of jumping out of a plane and into thin air is enough for any normal human being to be overwhelmed if on top of that you add that you still have to remember 8 hours of class, there is a lot of things that can be forgotten. My personal preference would be tandem but Ive seen both methods work succesfully. Stuff can go wrong in both methods, As far as believing that all you can get from AFF is a broken leg or minor injury if your instructors do everything right, there are a lot of things that go wrong even if the instructors do everything flawlessly. A student that forgets to pull and goes into a sit and then almost head down in fetal position 2 seconds after the instructor pulled him. Now you have someone wrapped in canopy lines which needs to remember emergency procedures, when he didn't even remember to check his altimeter or pull. A student that opened with linetwist and rode it into the ground while in a turn and while facing backwards. Students tha hit obstacles in landing on an off landing or a no radio landing. All these things have the potential to get someone killed, and there have been cases where the students get away from their instructors and damn good instructors too, and go low till the cypress fires... now as far as relying on a cypress, please remember that its just like any other electronic man made device and its not flawless. and in both events skydiving is not 100% safe, but having the chance to get the sensory overload out of the way without having to save your life as well seems like a good idea. now for a real figure of how often does freezing happen, out of my class for AFF 1, 4 or 5 out of 8 froze, didnt pull or pulled and held the pilot chute in their hands. ...

Geez... some time ago... 12k check all gear for the 3rd time, turn cameras on, sight etc... and you have that feeling that you are forgeting something, step out of the door into the camera step and grab the handle, just to feel the cold steel in your hand.... in your whole hand... you know where those damn swoop chords were supposed to be. ...

make sure that you can flare that canopy without any help for you are bound to have students that will forget and/or freeze on you. ...

get it. there are no drawbacks on it. I have turned my camera on at the step and on exit when something went wrong and realized it wasn't on. It even tells you if you got it in the right setting and if you have battery or tape about to run out. ...

I had a student who wanted to do turns, and even told me he had no motion sickness problems and loved rollercoasters. I took em for some spirals, and sure enough later on he went silent and I felt him start to (slightly) convulse, luckily we were high enough for me to tell him to turn his head and put us in a turn, so it went straight down, no splash on anyone. Thank god for people who don't eat breakfast. ...

congrats... keep it off of the mudd this time ...

dude come on.... its a piece of an alien spaceship that landed in the dessert collected sample creatures and took off

did you intend to land on the beach or did something go wrong and you made an "emergency exit" out of place and had to perform and "emergency landing with it" ...